Keeping Assembly polls boycott option open, says Tejashwi
Patna: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday asserted that the party was keeping the “option open” to boycott the upcoming Assembly polls in the wake of controversy over the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar.
The Leader of the Opposition made the remark outside the Assembly on the penultimate day of the monsoon session, responding to queries from reporters.
“We are keeping the option open for boycott of the Assembly polls. When the time comes, we will take a decision following a discussion with the alliance partners. What is happening in the name of SIR is nothing short of a fraud,” Yadav said.
“Booth-level officers are putting their own signatures and thumb impressions, on behalf of voters, on enumeration forms. Blank forms are being used like waste paper. Independent journalists who point out these anomalies are getting slapped with FIRs. And the government is okay with all this because the EC is acting like a political tool of the ruling dispensation,” he alleged.
During house-to-house visits in the ongoing SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar, poll officials have so far found that more than 52 lakh voters were not present at their addresses and another 18 lakh have died, according to the Election Commission.
The RJD has also moved the Supreme Court against the voter roll revision in Bihar.
Reacting to Tejashwi’s remarks, NDA leaders claimed that the Opposition has accepted defeat.
Asked to comment on the RJD leader’s remarks, Union Minister and JD(U) leader Rajiv Ranjan Singh ‘Lalan’ said it means the Opposition has conceded defeat.
“He is feeling that they will lose elections. Their forgery has been exposed and hence they are saying that they won’t contest (the polls),” he told reporters outside Parliament here.
BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy echoed the JD(U) leader’s sentiment and said: “There can only be two possibilities behind this. One is that Tejashwi Yadav has already accepted his defeat in Bihar, and he is looking for excuses to run away. The other is that he is doing some great politics, which I am unable to understand.”
Union Minister S P Singh Baghel accused the Opposition of “encouraging infiltrators to cast vote”.
Congress leader K C Venugopal, meanwhile, backed Yadav and said the Election Commission’s way of conducting the exercise raises “suspicion”.
“He has made an observation... Because the way the Election Commission is doing all these things is completely suspicious,” he said. Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MP Mahua Maji questioned why the poll panel was “rushing” with the exercise.
“It is very suspicious. An FIR was filed against a journalist. Many people from Bihar are in Maharashtra, Delhi, and Jharkhand. They have not informed everyone. Had they informed all, many people would have gone back,” Maji said.
